Rich On Hannibal

Rich on Reception goes to the movies

I can still remember the time I watched my first videotape. Everything about the situation was wrong. The video was a pirate. The film was The Terminator. And I, well, I was six. But I guess if the video was a pirate then it didn't have an age certificate - so who's to say I did the wrong thing by viewing it? No one actually. I wasn't done for anything. Dad's the one that got five to 10 for handling stolen goods.

They say the reason you remember certain things is because they shock you enough to stay imprinted on your mind. Maybe that's why certain moments from my video past have remained with me. John McClane putting bullets in a man through a table in Die Hard. The Terminator going through the phone book and putting bullets into anyone going by the name Sarah Connor. RoboCop's ED-209 giving a hapless company executive "15 seconds to comply".

But most importantly, and most vividly, I remember Manhunter. Through my Dad's connections in the cooler, he got me a fake ID and Ritz video membership card and bingo, I could rent any film. Before long I had trawled through stacks of tapes and was a veritable psycho-in-the-making. I put my sanity down to the videos running out and Finger Mouse intervening and saving my still young and impressionable mind. Manhunter was possibly the polar opposite of my childhood values and children's TV. A raw and faithful adaptation of Thomas Harris' first Lecter novel, it was expertly directed by Michael Mann and wonderfully played out by a cast of relative unknowns and B-list actors. I didn't know that at the time. I was scared s***less.

Psycho in making

Today though, things are different. I carry ID to look younger, go mad watching Mr Ben and question all things Hannibal.

Slipping quietly once more into my local cinema, I bumped into the drunkard before I had even found my seat. He ventured from his seat just long enough to reach the bar. By the time the credits were rolling, the drunkard was screaming. I'm not sure why but can only assume alcohol was not readily available.

It's all the more difficult to watch a 'scary' movie when you're actually sitting in spitting distance of a psycho in the making. I say spitting distance because he was, in fact, spitting at me.

Straight arrow

Hannibal lost me from the beginning. I don't mean lost as in confused, just not interested. It took no time at all to realise that Julianne Moore, although a talented bird, is no Clarice Starling. And, after the initial shoot-out, it's obvious we are in a completely different territory to the predecessors. The plot is drawn out slowly, but to ill effect, unlike the subtle build-up of tension in The Silence Of The Lambs.

The story does not sit right. Starling's disillusionment with the FBI was a key element to the book and makes up half the plot here. However, instead of becoming disillusioned, she gets on with her straight arrow attitude. As for detective work, she finds one clue and then gets lucky. The rest of her part is almost non-existent as she does what she is told by the various bad guys who turn up during proceedings.

By the time Hannibal appears, it's obvious there was a struggle to find the excuse to introduce him. We just demanded more Hannibal the Cannibal. Hell, even the script demands Hopkins to deliver the lines, "I see I've been put back into the FBI's 10 most wanted list," and "I've decided to come out of retirement..." Quite why this happened is only clear in real life. It¿s a franchise. Like Freddy Krueger being reborn eight times and Jason Vorhees coming to life because someone wandered into his camp.

Anti-hero

Hopkins' performance, while cold and creepy, is just not the same when he is asked to carry the movie. Like Freddie Kreuger and Jason Vorhees, he has to play the role with his tongue occasionally wandering into his cheek. And there's very little mystery behind his eyes now. We know what he's going to do, just not how he's going to do it.

With Lecter becoming an anti-hero, the bad guy element needed balancing. Enter Gary Oldman's Mason Verger. Behind some outstanding make-up, he plays a surviving Lecter victim. The two share no more than two minutes of screen time, which is disappointing; Oldman plays his part with zest and is wasted in what is basically a cameo.

Another positive is Ray Liotta's performance graced with his usual mean looks and nigh-on villainous smile. But with yet another bad guy, it's impossible not to feel somewhat negative - Starling is getting screwed by the feds, screwed by the DEA, screwed by Verger and chased by a cannibal.

Wink

By now the drunkard was reading my notes over my shoulder. I could smell him. He swilled his diet cola around his mouth, spat it on the floor, stared at me with those cold, dead, black eyes and said...

"How can there be a winner in a game of losers?"

I've never been so scared.

But later, with the drunkard cringing in disgust, I laughed my ass off as Ray Liotta, now in his final scene, practically winked at the camera, telling me not to worry about the film, he'd made his money and he was getting the hell out of there. And good luck to him.

Having actually read the book, I was all too aware of the movie's shortcomings. A number of characters are jettisoned and so some motives become simply confusing. Most notably the finale makes little sense of the film as a whole and makes it all seem pretty pointless.

Sparing horror

On the plus side the visuals, especially in Florence, are excellent. Whoever shot this film can walk away feeling proud. You can see the quality throughout. And although it won't drive me to eating human flesh, it certainly made me want to visit Italy.

The horror is used sparingly and to excellent effect. The action that does exist is handled well enough, although I'm not sure how many times Scott will get away with that trick of speeding up the camera frames. Gladiator, anybody?

Like most Hollywood fare, it's not the worst film you'll see this year. You might even like it if you don't expect a Silence Of The Lambs 2. But the point is, for such a highly-anticipated film, it never stood a chance. Hannibal has proved successful enough to warrant another chapter. But with Hannibal differing so much from the Thomas Harris novel, Red Dragon's probably going to be a Manhunter remake instead. My advice? Watch Manhunter. Before that gets cannibalised too.

Rich
Unit 2 Reception
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